A Stolen Moment
by DistrictNineAndThreeQuarters
Summary: "We stand, face-to-face, toe-to-toe, wondering what we're going to do when the song is over, when we have to step apart. What now? Back to harsh reality, the lonely tent and the abandonment and the fear and imminent war. We've each lost our other; so where do we go from here?" Hermione's dance with Harry and her thoughts on Ron leaving.


A/N: Just a one-shot of Harry and Hermione, from Hermione's POV. Set during Deathly Hallows, right after Ron leaves to be specific. This is major friendship and moderate angst. I don't ship Harry and Hermione for the same reason I don't ship Ron and Ginny, and if you can't figure that one out then you're probably married to your first cousin. My point is, this isn't meant to be at all romantic.

Enjoy!

* * *

"So that's it, then?" I murmur, more to the snow than to Harry. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, and watch the wisps of frigid air leave my lungs like smoke. "He's gone."

"He's gone," Harry repeats mournfully.

I try to hold back tears, but what's the point? He's seen me cry before, and I have no doubt he will again. Heat floods my freezing face and I feel warm tears run down my cheeks in rivulets. Gone gone gone. Not coming back.

"We'll just have to go on without him," Harry says, voice barely audible. A gloved hand engulfs my bare, numb one. Reluctantly, I let Harry lead me out of snowy night and into the warmth of the tent.

"We could just stay out here, you know? Even after, if there's a war. We could come back here. It's not like we have anything to go back to," I say thickly. I'm thinking out loud now, barely noticing the words leaving my mouth.

"Hermione-"

I snatch one of Ron's old jumpers off my bunk, violently hurling the maroon fabric across the tent. "What's the point?" I demand. "Your parents are gone; mine don't know who I am anymore. Our best friend abandoned us, and there's no way he's going to be able to come back, even on the off-chance he'd want to!"

Harry looks away from me and suddenly I feel awful. What right do I have to drag the poor man into my anguished mess of a head? But I can't seem to stop myself; the words keep tumbling from my blue-tinted lips.

"We could hide here, live out the rest of our miserable lives in our platonic relationship," I continue.

He laughs. "I think the cold's got to your head."

"I think Weasley got to my head," I snap. "What am I supposed to do?"

"We have to focus on the task at hand. There's nothing else to do."

"I mean after, Harry. The present is almost unbearable for me unless I think about the future, about something to move on to when this is all over. It can't last forever, you know. The hunt, the war. We'll either defeat You-Know-Who or we'll die in the attempt.

"But I just always thought I'd…that I'd have some sort of future with Ron. But now that's he's left…he won't be able to find his way back to us after we move; the protections are too strong. We might not even see him until this is over. Harry, that could be years. It could be never.

"What if something happens to him, or to us? That could've been the last time we'll ever get to see him, Harry…" I stop, wipe tears from my face.

"We can't think that way, Hermione. But I know how you feel. What do you think it was like for me to leave Ginny behind?" he whispers. "Up until now I've always assumed that eventually I'd see her again, that I'd have something to return to. But now that we're actually in hiding, on the run like this, the future seems so much more unlikely. Anything could happen, Hermione. But it wouldn't do us any good to dwell on it. All we can do is take care of the task at hand, because that's our only way of having any sort of control over the future."

"Okay," I sniffle. "You're right."

"We'll stay out here until tomorrow night."

"Why?"

"In case he comes back, we-we can give him a longer window of time."

I nod. "Good idea." As if Ron's planning on returning.

"Come on."

"What?"

Harry taps the top of the Wireless, letting some cheerful, waltz-y tune drift through the small tent. "Dance with me."

"Are you mad?"

"Says the one who just suggested we live out the rest of our lives here in this dinky tent in the middle of nowhere?" he teases, crossing the floor and pulling me to my feet.

"I can't dance!" I protest.

"Yes you can, you did at the Yule Ball. If anyone can't dance, it's me."

Gingerly, he reaches around my neck, fiddling with the clasp of Slytherin's locket and carefully setting the horcrux aside. "One dance?"

I roll my eyes, letting him rest his hands on either side of my waist. I put mine on his shoulders, on top of the bulky layers of his winter clothes, and we spin round, not even trying to keep in time to the music. It's really all we can do not to crush each other's feet. Laughing, we twirl each other around ungracefully, giggling stupidly, dancing and tripping and falling like we've not a single care in the world, like nothing can touch us, like we're invincible, because love is the most powerful force in the world. And I love him and he loves me, and platonic love is better than romantic, at least right now, when everything's beautiful and nothing hurts.

That slow, frozen moment; little slice of perfect, of what could have been, potentially, but never will be. The music ends, fades like a dying heartbeat and gradually, reality seeps in through the cracks in the wall of happiness, bits of it crumbling, collapsing with every breath we take, with every note that plays on, each one fainter, weaker than the one before it. We stand, face-to-face, toe-to-toe, wondering what we're going to do when the song is over, when we have to step apart. What now? Back to harsh reality, the lonely tent and the abandonment and the fear and imminent war. We've each lost our other; so where do we go from here? He flinches, odd, lost, leans in so slightly, immeasurably. Is this the part where the boy kisses the girl? No, no, no, of course not, because this is not us, this is not real. Is this what they call a stolen moment? Yes, this was ripped from someone else's life, but this is not us, not now or ever, really. The song ends and with it, so does our little moment, robbed from some parallel universe, maybe one we can revisit together, or alone, or with other people, but first we have to live, we have to hold on and survive to see tomorrow and the day after and the future, as bright or as bleak as it may be; we have to focus on the task at hand.


End file.
